On to the bats!

Isn't it great to have nature in your house!

Yesterday I filled up all the bat holes I could find! Two cans of spray foam later, I'm closer to sealing the attic.




I built a seal with a bat exit for the last opening...where we've seen the most bat activity. The idea is that the bats can leave through the piece of pipe, but won't be able to find their way back in through the plastic tube connected to the end of the pipe.

No idea if any left last night through the exit. My attempts to video the hole as dusk yielded no results. But maybe they left without telling us.

Now we'll wait a few days and see what happens next!

Backfilled!

After filling in the hole with dirt and rock, we picked up a trailer load of wood chips today. By the end of the day, the chips are all down on landscaping cloth and several rocks are placed.

It sure is nice to be 'out of the hole!'

Finally Filled In!


The hole is full! I backfilled the wall tonight after a break in the rain. Any critters that get in that way now will be fully welcomed...because they carved their way through 10 inches of concrete! That would be amazing...


Sorry about the sideways pictures...our software isn't cooperating!

After the backfill, we got back to the original project...landscaping the front of the house.
Erica and I set edging and landscape cloth tonight and placed a few (huge!) rocks. Tomorrow we'll bring in some wood chips and finish it off.

No more concrete to mix!



The wall has been fully rebuilt. After the filling the sides and top with concrete, I used an expanding grout to seal up the top of the wall. It was a lot like play-doh...I could roll it up and stuff it in the space above the wall.


Now were ready to backfill. But mother nature makes us wait...as we are getting a much needed several inches of rain this morning.

The next step is to backfill the hole and get to the landscaping we started with on this project. Rumor has it there is a large supply of new (old!) rocks at the street construction project down the hill. Those of you that saw our last house know how much we like rocks.

Lots of learning going on...

One of our neighbors has been collecting historical information about our neighborhood for years. He brought over a collection of articles a few days ago that tell us much, much more
about our house and it's history!

I'll scan some articles and develop some posts to share the news. Here's a hint...those dry lines in the front yard in the picture on the right?! We live ON TOP OF the old orphanage!

This hole I'm filling up? A doorway in an interior basement wall!

Almost sealed...

Yesterday I mixed up about 5 more bags of concrete and filled in the blocks. Then I attached the wooden form that we built and added concrete to the front half of the top of the wall.

I also built small forms for the two sides and filled these spaces with concrete.


The next step, after stripping these forms, will be to use non-shrinking grout and fill up the
very top of the hole.

The chipmunk's days are numbered!

Today I filled the majority of the open space with a block wall. We we able to run vertical support pillars inside of the concrete blocks. Ben and I built a header of sorts with a steel plate to connect to the tops of the adjustable pillars.

The first step was a dry fit of the blocks...

Then we pulled the block back out and mixed up mortar. Thanks, Dad for your help! Two brains made things progress well today!

We had great mortar mixers today as well...way to go, boys!

The next step will be to set the to plate on the pillars and apply some lift. Then I'll fill the blocks and the space on the front half of third course of block with concrete.

And what a beautiful lightning storm to end the night...

Quit Digging...Start Building

As of Thursday night, here is my progress:

I removed several large rocks that were a part of the doorway-filling wall.

The mortar that held them in place was pretty much soft sand. Once they were out, I made a flat base in the hole.





Then I cut two post holes to use for footings for the new wall. I placed steel in the hole and then started mixing concrete.




I had lots of help! We picked up 20 bags of concrete mix, and put 11 of them into this foundation wall.

The next move will be to place load bearing posts on the footings. I need to decide whether to use concrete blocks with the posts inside of them or form the wall and pour it with concrete.

The fun continues...

Here are tonights photos...
This rock was too big to lift out by hand, so we used the chain and pull technique.

Once it was out, I was able to dig further. Standing in the hole tonight puts the the top of the hole just over my waist.

The goal is to excavate until I hit a solid enough surface to support concrete and form a base to pour upon.

More digging tomorrow...

Here is the kitchen before and after...

This was Sunday night's project.

Now back to news from the hole in the front of the house.

And now...a new kitchen sink. And faucet. And disposal. What an add in the paper won't do!

Pictures before and after coming soon...

We have a new hole.

Some background for those of you that aren't familiar with our place...

Our house is known in the neighborhood as "the orphanage". We understand the first structure built on the property was an orphanage, and the date was somewhere between 1908 and 1912. Within a few years, we think that there was a fire at the orphanage that did significant damage to it...or completely destroyed it. The house we live in was build either adjacent to or attached to the original building. We're really not sure at this point the relationship between the two buildings. The original orphanage is not here anymore. But a look at the photo on the top of our blog will show the remnants of the original building's walls. When it is very dry, the grass over these walls dries up quickly, and gets very brown. Notice the brown stripes in the front yard in that photo.

We have had chipmunks (we think) accessing the interior walls of our house over the first year we have lived here. I determined that this is where they are getting...so began to explore their entrance and decide how to prevent their visits.

A bit of digging the first day revealed what looks like the top of a doorway extending from the basement of our existing house into the foundation of the basement of the other adjacent building (not there anymore). More digging revealed that this wall had been filled with large stones (1-2 ft in diameter) with mortar between them. But mortar in the early 1900s had little adhesive, and left the current wall very crumbly. As a result, as we begin to explore the wall, there may be lots of opening up to do.


The chipmunks can now invite their large friends. I've made the hole much larger via initial exploration. But soon we'll make our hole bigger, and then much smaller!

This is about 5 feet wide at this point.

Stay tuned for concrete to go into the hole!